Friday, October 09, 2009

One of the things I love most about SiteMeter is that it tells me how people arrive in my humble corner of Blogaritaville. And this morning I noticed that somebody had gotten here searching for YouTube Videos about domestic violence. In following their search string, I ran across this video. The story told here is painfully similar to those told every week on Violence UnSilenced. But in this case, by watching and listening to the story, you can actually directly benefit survivors of domestic violence. For every person who views the video $1 will be donated to the Jessie Bliss McGrew Freedom Fund within the Alpha Chi Omega Foundation. (For more information on Alpha Chi Omega and the Jessie Bliss McGrew Freedom Fund, visit this site.Funds up to $22,000 have been pledged by sponsors based on viewership, so it will only cost you four minutes of your time. Four minutes that could make all the difference for someone who desperately needs it. Someone like the latest contributing author on Violence UnSilenced who found out just how difficult leaving can be -- even if you can leave safely.I also encourage you to view this Flash presentation by the foundation from the campaign of (I believe) 2005. Whether or not the pledged funds from that campaign are still available, there is still good information in the presentation that could help you help someone else.

If you're looking for other ways to help, read this article: Wednesday Q&A: How Can I Honor DV Awareness Month? Carrie's answer to that question has a list of great suggestions, but I'd like to add a couple of things for anyone who has a blog, a website, an account on FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter or some other social network. And it won't cost you a nickel to do any of them.

Publish a link to VU on your page/blog: http://violenceunsilenced.com/

Visit and comment on as many of the survivor stories on VU as possible (new stories are published weekly on Monday and Thursday). Give those courageous enough to speak out the validation and support they deserve. Because for every story that's published, there are hundreds that are still ongoing. And someone somewhere is reading her (or his) life story in the words of another.

And if you need any assistance figuring out how to do any of these, feel free to contact me. (My function with VU is mainly tech support, so if you contact Maggie with a tech question she's gonna send you to me anyway.)